When Google first started doing Docs I thought it would be cool if they built a native app based on OpenOffice (or an OpenOffice add-on) to meld their services with the sort of office app that people were more used to. Of course, they never did. After they picked up QuickOffice I figured it meant they'd finally follow that strategy. I appear to be wrong again.

My best guess is that it's about Drive and QuickOffice representing essentially different models. Drive is built around the Web and collaboration, with documents as streams of edits (and revision histories always available). QuickOffice is built along the lines of Office. Drive doesn't try to implement lots of Office features, but on the flipside it adds some distinctly Googly things (Google Docs Forms). I'm guessing Google wants to mostly invest in the product that reflects their new model, and wants to focus on getting new users into it.

QuickOffice still a valuable acquisition for lots of reasons--Google can give away a legacy-style Android suite that syncs with Drive, and a doc viewer for Chrome OS; they get the talent and the code with all its hard-earned compatibility with Office quirks. But my guess is that adding features to the QuickOffice product won't be a big priority.Reply

I think this is a good move it will allow them to update the functionality much faster.I think what they really should do is make Drive a full file-manager for android, chrome os, with the ability to sync between multiple devices certain folders. It would also be nice if you could do some remote Drive management to android.Reply